Fall TV Week Three, Part 2 — Duck and Cover!

Wednesday, 9/23

Mercy(NBC) – 8pm. The ads for this show make it look absolutely unbearably awful. Plus, stop claiming to be the only show about nurses, you morons, or I’m sending Nurse Jackie over to kick your ass. I strongly suspect the title of this series is going to be the rallying cry of everyone who watches it. Then again, JAMES TUPPER, people. It’s not like I can just NOT tune in.

Sit-coms (not watching): The New Adventures of Old Christine (CBS) – 8pm, Gary Unmarried (CBS) – 8:30pm, Cougar Town (ABC) – 9:30pm, Modern Family (ABC) – 9pm. Of these four, the only one I’m even remotely intrigued by is Modern Family, which is a mockumentary-style sit-com about an American family being filmed for a Dutch reality show. But I’ll wait for you guys to tell me if it’s any good first — don’t leave me hangin’. As for Cougar Town, my plan for that one is to Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal it into disexistence. If I can’t see it, it can’t see me. Annnnd POOF.

Crime shows (watching due to irrational inability to quit even when quitting is the only logical move): Criminal Minds (CBS) – 9pm, Law & Order: SVU (NBC) – 9pm, CSI:New York(CBS) – 10pm. I still really enjoy Criminal Minds, even though it has gotten sort of repetitive. Stop me if you’ve heard this profile before: age 20-40, white male, issues with mom, works full-time and appears normal to the neighbors, has a dungeon in his basement. I just described the “unsub” from 95% of the episodes from last season, I swear. Nevertheless, I have a mondo crush on Joe Mantegna and that goes a long way towards keeping me engaged.

Law & Order: SVU, I would argue, has sucked almost unbearably for at least the last two seasons, if not longer. I need to let it go and for some reason find myself unable to. Here’s hoping it frees me like ER finally did, but doesn’t take nearly as long to get around to it.

Lastly, CSI: New York is the only one of the three CSI series I tune into with any degree of regularity anymore. The original series has been too hit-or-miss for about the last three years and Lawrence Fishburne is not doing it any favors (not his fault, I would argue — the conceit of his addition to the team was just really lame and unbelievable and I haven’t gotten past that yet). CSI:NY got a lot better in its second season, so if you bailed after its awful first, it might be worth checking it out again. It’s got some good characters and some annoying ones, but Gary Sinise is a steady helmsman, and, of course, I still love Melina Kanakaredes from her days on Due South and always, always will.

Eastwick(ABC) – 10pm. The ads for this show make it look absolutely unbearably awful. Hey, deja vu! I’m not crazy about two out of the three actresses running this machine, and the third one I’m only not not-crazy about because I have no idea who she is. That probably bodes significantly less than well. Then again, PAUL GROSS. Curses! Somebody in charge of casting all the terrible shows this year certainly has my number.

Thursday, 9/24

Flash Forward (ABC) – 8pm. This time-bending sci-fi show centers on a bizarre incident that causes all of mankind to black out for two minutes, during which time they each get a glimpse of themselves six months in the future. It’s obviously been inspired by Lost, which was reason enough at first for me NOT to want to tune in. I changed my mind, though, when I read two things about this show. The first is that we’ll get to the “future” by the end of the first season — no holding over what’s in the metaphoric hatch for a ridiculously long time. The second is that the series creators have already mapped out the full five years of the show. This gives me hope it will have neither the constant frustrations nor the time-killing flailings of Lost. As for the physics that make my brain hurt, I’m always happy to sign up for more pain. Especially with Joseph Fiennes and Courtney B. Vance at the helm.

CSI(CBS) – 9pm. As I said above, this series is not really doing it for me any more. Too many favorite characters gone, too many weird restructurings of the rest of the staff in the lab, too many repetitive storylines. I’ll probably watch, but not with regularity. Fishburne, get out while you still can! (By the way, if you get the chance to see the CSI exhibit that is touring various science museums in the U.S. right now, go! It’s totally fun!)

The Mentalist (CBS) – 10pm. I watched the first two or three episodes of this one last year and wasn’t impressed enough to want to make space for it in my weekly schedule. I’ve since heard that it got pretty good there towards the end, but I’m probably too far behind at this point to ever get caught up. Love Simon Baker, but can’t help thinking whenever I watch this show that I’d rather be watching Psych.

Dollhouse(Fox) – 9pm. Yep. Though it took me almost the entire first season to warm up to this Joss Whedon show, by the end, I was thoroughly hooked. When it finally broke free of the “prostitute conceit of the week” stories and really delved into the background stuff, it got incredibly engrossing. Plus, this season adds a dash of Jamie Bamber to the mix; I love that little bunny! Dear Fox: Try not to frak this one up, okay?

Medium(CBS) – 9pm (new network!). I’m beyond grateful that CBS rescued this series when NBC gave it the boot last summer. It may not be brilliant, but it’s thoughtful and well-acted, and that goes a long way in my book. Glad to have it back, and so soon too (last year we had to wait until January for it). Major crush on Jake Weber, of course. That probably goes without saying at this point.

11 Responses to “Fall TV Week Three, Part 2 — Duck and Cover!”

Seriously, not including Smallville on Friday?!? My absolute favorite show of all time, behind MacGyver , of course. If you haven’t seen it (and this is Season 9), shame on you! Get it Netflixed, stat!

Whoops! Forgot Smallville was back too — sorry! I watched the first two seasons, but got pretty tired of it after that (you’ll note, however, that both Clark and Lex have been Boyfriends of the Week). I’ve heard the last couple of seasons have been really great, though. I’d have to watch 7 just to catch up at this point, however — probably not going to happen!

I am SO TIRED of “Smallville!” IMHO it fell apart after Jonathan Kent died, and it’s just getting weirder all the time – it should be called “Superman: The Lost Years” – ‘cuz, “Smallville” it ain’t!

TV Guide actually had the nerve to put, along with Simon Baker, on its cover: “Psyched about The Mentalist!” I steered clear of Baker last year, because I thought he was – gasp – icky looking! I wasn’t really big into “Psych,” but now I’m watching it, and beginning to appreciate it; I started watching mostly out of spite!

I agree with almost everything you said in your reviews, Meg, esp. about “Medium” (BTW: Jake Weber in a mall, fighting zombies!) and “CSI: NY” (the one about the Holocaust survivors blew me away!). But I do like Lawrence Fishburne, even though I really miss Grissom. It’s not the actor’s fault if the writing is – well – lousy! Also – “Lost” – Abrams claimed that he had the plot for that one mapped out in advance, too, so … we’ll see if it makes any difference!

I giggled when you referred to “unsub.” That was the name of the criminally short-lived series, starring David Soul, that was a “pre-CSI” “CSI” … and was canceled because the producers thought no one would watch a show about solving murders with high tech!

Modern Family – Very funny! You should be watching. I was almost put off by Ed O’Neill but he’s quite good.

New Adventures of Old Christine – Another very funny show. So enjoyable to watch immensely talented comedic actors deliver funny material. Comedy is largely about timing and these actors work so well off of each other.

FlashForward – I’m checking this out BECAUSE it reminds me of “Lost”.

The Mentalist – The supporting cast is talented and really adds to the show. It has some really dry humor which I appreciate. I prefer when Simon Baker goes “dark” even though they think the audience wants to see the “charming”.

Numb3rs – I watch it mainly for the Epps men interaction. But Amita is one of the better female characters on tv.

B&S – Can’t pull my eyes from Kevin. And it’s even better when he’s with Scotty.

Dexter – me too Meg. Gotta wait for the dvds. But this is one sick and immensely addictive show. Michael C Hall is genius.

Mercy & Eastwick – I’ll check them out but I’ll be surprised if I can last through one episode.

Meg – I know you don’t mention Glee in here. but I wanted to thank you so much for turning me on it. I LOVE IT!!

As far as the other shows go, I’ll be watching the CSI’s, although I’m still catching up w/Miami, the acting is horrible, but the show plots are pretty good.

I stopped watching SVU the season after Ice T started in it(had nothing to do w/him, the show is just DEPRESSING)

I love Criminal Minds, I was upset when Inigo Montoya aka Mandy Patinkin left, but I fell just as hard for Joe Mantegna, although I did have a thought that Robert Davi would have made a good replacement also.
And I can NOT WAIT for Medium to come back.

I started watching a show on BBC America called Mistresses, and got hooked, so I put the first season in my Netflix Que. Now the name is as bad as the show sounds. It’s not say as bad as…Nip/Tuck. The show is I guess an British Equivalent to Sex and the City, but a WHOLE OF A HELL LOT BETTER.

Lorraine – I could NOT figure out what “B&S” meant, and had to go thru Meg’s whole review again, before I finally saw that it meant “Brothers & Sisters!” I’ve never seen it! But I totally agree with you about the interaction of the Epps men on “Numbers.” I LOVE the casting of those 3 guys – and they have such great moments together. And I agree about Amita, too – I saw her in a very funny (to me) “zombedie” (the movie’s word, not mine!) called “Undead or Alive.”

Liz – sorry about the abbreviation :) Don’t know if I can watch a zombie movie (ok, I’m ducking now because you all seem to love them). I love all the family and university scenes on Numb3rs and can do without most of the standard police scenes :) And the newest female FBI agent (with the big hair) is very annoying.

Meg – this is what you wrote about Mercy and Eastwick –
“The ads for this show make it look absolutely unbearably awful.”
Well after trying the shows, it describes the shows also. I could not get through either (although I did FF to get to one James Tupper scene).

FlashForward – a bit disappointing. For me, the show has to become more than the characters waiting and agonizing over the bad things they saw in their flash-forward. “Lost” is fun. I don’t see FlashForward ever becoming fun so the mystery investigation better get interesting or it will be too depressing for me.